Yesterday’s FOMC minutes were a bit hawkish, as Fed members agreed the economic outlook had strengthened recently, and expected inflation to rise in coming months.
The dollar, which was already rebounding from the 89.35 low earlier in the session, climbed to 89.67.
Gold, which was already coming off its 11-week high of $1365, was pressed further down. It fell back under former resistance levels at $1356-57, $1354, and $1350 to reach $1348 before recovering to $1353 later in the afternoon.
Overnight, gold traded lower in a range of $1353.25 - $1342, fading strength in the US dollar (DX to 89.88).
The greenback was aided by some weakness in the euro ($1.2379 - $1.2312) which softened from a miss in Eurozone Industrial Production (-0.8% vs. exp. 0.1%), and some dovish ECB minutes (removal of dovish bias should not be misunderstood).
Mostly firmer global equities were also a headwind for gold, with the NIKKEI off 0.1%, the SCI -0.9%, European shares were up from 0.1% - 0.5%, and S&P futures were +0.5%. An early morning tweet (below) by Trump saying an attack on Syria may not be imminent also weighed on the yellow metal:
Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all! In any event, the United States, under my Administration, has done a great job of ridding the region of ISIS. Where is our “Thank you America?”
At 8:30 AM, though US Jobless Claims (233k vs. exp. 230k) and Import Prices (unch. vs. exp. 0.1%) were slightly higher than expected, the dollar rose further.
The greenback was buoyed by continued weakness in the euro ($1.23), which was hurt by some dovish...